


The Garden of Forking Paths

by Anonymous



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Cold War, Dreams, Literary References & Allusions, Literature, M/M, One Shot, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2019-12-30 21:10:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18322097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "And I hung up the receiver, hands shaking. The evening had grown dark and dusky, the dimming sky visible through the window of my cramped room. I had been living here, an old abandoned storefront below me, just eight blocks from the Capitol building. Two weeks. Two weeks of nothing, until yesterday. But I had recognized the voice on the other end of the phone."A Cold War spies AU based on "The Garden of Forking Paths" by Jorge Luis Borges.





	The Garden of Forking Paths

**And I hung up the receiver, hands shaking. The evening had grown dark and dusky, the dimming sky visible through the window of my cramped room. I had been living here, an old abandoned storefront below me, just eight blocks from the Capitol building. Two weeks. Two weeks of nothing, until yesterday. But I had recognized the voice on the other end of the phone. It wasn’t Sanya Semin, who was likely dead or in custody by now. I wondered about his contact, the member of our trio who I was not allowed to contact directly. Who now, could I inform of my findings?**

The voice on the line had been that of Captain Sidney Crosby, I thought miserably. I walked to my narrow iron cot, flopping down on my back. The Canadian agent had met trouble working for the Americans in the early years of the war, and he was now a figure of ill-repute within his agency. Was he a fearsome force to be reckoned with? No doubt – he would seize upon this miraculous chance to redeem himself. Capturing two Soviet spies in the nation’s capital was no small feat. And he had suspected me for weeks. I saw him following me as I walked home from the cafeteria two days ago – my searches for information had been so fruitless I had thought little of its consequence. Now my new knowledge lay heavy on me, a pregnant secret. Outside the window, the scene of rooftops and streetlamps, giving way to a small open park just beyond view, was as ordinary as ever. How strange that a day so empty of portents would be the day of my imminent demise.

How, then, should I share my findings, I wondered? If I had my way, I would throw my window open and scream it to the high heavens, but my human voice suddenly felt very fragile and weak, unable to carry the news very far. That cruel man in Moscow, who knew little of the private struggles Sanya and I faced in the States, was my primary target. That man, who waited eagerly for a report from the three of us. The noise of wartime was too great; there was no way to communicate with him through the regular channels now. I sat up, silently perching on the edge of my cot as I racked my brain for the answer.

My first course of action was to empty my pockets onto the bedside table. A collection of coins and a notebook, ordinary fare for a man in the city. Tucked inside the notebook was a letter from a dear friend - Zhenya, Evgeny Kuznetsov in Moscow. I resolved to destroy it before I was captured, so as not to incriminate him in any way. Finally, a revolver with a single bullet, stashed inside my jacket. Only to be used at the very end of need, I thought. For a spare second, I contemplated suicide. I could already feel Crosby’s hands knocking at my door, his horse-like face leering. The sound of a gunshot can be heard from a great distance – if only it could bear my message across the ocean. 

Suddenly I was seized with an idea, spurred by the memory of an advertisement I had seen some days prior. In less than ten minutes I perfected my plan. A glance at the phone book was all I needed, to find that man who could help me carry out my design. It was simple and ridiculously lucky, yet a perilous undertaking just the same. I dressed quickly, bidding a silent farewell to myself in the mirror, before going downstairs and out into the bustling street. It was faster to take a cab to the train station, so I did. Perhaps it would be safer that way, with less chance of being recognized. As I climbed into the back seat, I threw the key to Sanya’s apartment and Zhenya’s letter into the gutter – I had no need of them anymore.

At the train station, I bought a ticket for a town twenty miles into Virginia to avoid suspicion. The train was leaving quickly so I hurried to the platform. It was nearly empty, so I felt safe for the moment as I boarded. It was less than five minutes before the cars began to move, a slow and steady escape. I spied a man running to the end of the platform. Suddenly my veins ran with ice – it was Captain Crosby. So he had found my trail after all. I tried my best to quell my trembling limbs, shrinking back in my seat to avoid attention as the train bore me evenly into the dusk.

Somehow the ride was peaceful – the knowledge that I had already escaped Crosby and left him behind, perhaps sulking on the platform, was a comfort. I had bought myself time at least, although he knew the direction of my destination. No doubt he would board the next train, which wouldn’t leave until 9:30. Did this small victory point towards a larger success, I wondered? It was no secret that I was a man who believed in fate. It gave me strength, a future as unchangeable as the past that might help me accomplish my ends. The train ride was smooth, the pace amiable. We arrived as the clock struck nine, at a station surrounded by ash trees. The rotting clapboard of the wall made the location difficult to read. “Ashgrove?” I called to the boys on the platform, and they nodded.

The faces of the boys were cast in shadow. One of them asked me, “Are you going to the house of Dr. Bäckström?” I nodded, feeling ill-at-ease. I felt that I looked unusual without a traveling bag, that I might arouse distrust. But the boys were not affected. “The house is a long way, but take the road to the left and every left after that. You should make it there.” I tossed them a coin – my last – before beginning my walk in the silence.

The path was as silent as death, made from dirt and pebbles and lines with tangled brush. The full moon was my only light – it seemed almost like a maze, closed off and unnavigable. Indeed, the best way to solve a maze, I thought with a wry smile, was always turning to the left. I was reminded of my family’s unfortunate legacy in our hometown, just outside of Moscow. My grandfather, retiring from public life after a long career, made several strange statements that brought ill favor upon my lineage. First, he swore that he would write a novel that would be revolutionary in its scope. Second, he would construct an enormous labyrinth in which all men would become lost. These tasks, as insurmountable as they seemed, were never completed – he was murdered several years later. His novel, unfortunately, was incoherent. The townspeople thought him a foolish old man. Though secretly, as a child, I had wondered what a labyrinth of that scope could be like. A twisting maze of trees and shrubs, perhaps, stunning in its complexity, with branches hiding the sky from view. I thought of it then, almost forgetting my pursuer, pretending I was lost deep within its clutches.

Before I realized, I had arrived at a gate. Beyond, I saw the dim outline of a house, humble in scale but stately nonetheless. It was then I realized something astonishing – there was music coming from the house, the words in my own language. I froze, entranced. This could not be the work of mere coincidence and for a moment I wondered if it was some elaborate trap. I did not remember knocking at the gate, but the music stopped and a figure emerged from the house. He carried a lamp with him, lighting his path through the front garden. As he drew closer, I realized that he was a man, slightly younger than myself from the rounded shape of his face. He was Swedish in origin, as I had guessed from the name; his face was curious, with soft, thoughtful features. He wore a black turtleneck of fine material over his rounded shoulders, although I am not sure why I noticed it so vividly. He paused behind the gate, pale eyes searching my face.

“You are here to see the garden?” he asked me in fluent Russian.

“The garden?” I answered him in kind. If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. Instead, he smiled softly.

“The garden of forking paths.”

The name at once stirred something in my chest, and I gaped at him. “The garden of my grandfather.” I replied without thinking. 

“Your grandfather? Nikolai Ovechkin?” The man’s face brightened. “Come in.”

The foyer of the house was a library, with books floor to ceiling in Russian and English. I recognized some of the volumes, books difficult to obtain outside of the Soviet Union. There were several plush armchairs in the room, stacked with velvety pillows, along with a modest upright piano in the corner of the room. I spied a balalaika propped on a shelf and a set of khokhloma vases on top of the mantelpiece. Gaping, I turned to my host, who regarded me with that same smile. His blond hair was diffuse and framed his face, his grey-green eyes sharp and attentive now behind his round glasses. “Are you surprised?” he asked.

“How… Dr. Bäckström…” I stammered.

“Just Nicklas, please.” The man crossed the room to pick up a tea set on a side table. “I am a collector of all things Russian in origin. My family fled from Sweden when I was just a boy, and we lived a time in St. Petersburg, after. Please, sit.” We sat down facing each other – I was on the lower sofa, he with his back to the window. Everything looked, felt and even smelled hyper-real. The golden glow of the light on Nicklas’s cheek, and the whiff of tea from the open pot in his grasp. I took in the atmosphere, feeling more open than I had in weeks. Crosby would not arrive for another hour at least, I decided. His pursuit was going to have to wait.

“Your grandfather’s is an amazing story.” Nicklas murmured, gaze fixed on the tea as it poured from the long lilting spout. “The mayor of his small hometown, learned in many disciplines. Yet, everyone thought he was a madman when he told them of his plans, didn’t they?”

“Yes,” I confirmed sourly. “My family curses him. He discredited our name throughout all of Russia with his ravings, it seems. His book is incomprehensible, nothing more than a heap of drafts left unfinished. And the labyrinth…”

“Ah, his labyrinth is here.” Nicklas interrupted me, fixing me again with that inquisitive gaze. Gracefully, he pointed a finger at the tall desk to his left before handing me the teacup.

I was puzzled for a moment before I caught the implication of his suggestion. “Carved from ivory, then? A miniature?” I guessed. The tea smelled of cherry, tart and piercing. Nicklas shook his head.

“Not quite. A labyrinth of time,” He stood up, his figure silhouetted by the setting sun and the lamp behind him. I regarded him as he opened the desk and withdrew a piece of paper. He extended it to me and I took it, unfolding the aged document to find it was a letter. Rather, a fragment of a letter – the rest was ripped away. The words which were still legible, written in my native tongue, said: ‘I leave to the various futures (not to all) my garden of forking paths.’

Saying nothing, I handed it back to Nicklas, who continued. “Before I discovered this letter, I asked myself how a book could possibly be infinite. Yes, perhaps you guessed it – the book and the labyrinth are one and the same. Can a book go on indefinitely? And the contradictory manuscripts your family discovered… There was not one clear explanation, I decided.”

I frowned. “What did you find from the letter, then?” I asked. Nicklas smiled again before sipping his tea.

“That these various futures Nikolai spoke of were forks in time, not in space. The chapters he penned – each one represents a different future, determined by the choices of the characters. For example, let us say that the two of us were in a terrible accident. You might survive, or I might, or both of us may live, or both of us may die. An author might choose one of these possibilities and reject the others. Your grandfather chose all of them – these forks proliferate throughout his story, as manifold as a labyrinth.”

“Incredible!” I exclaimed. The idea, although it was reasonable within the bounds logic, had seemed inconceivable up until that moment. “A maze of every outcome, told as one? Like a tree of infinite branches.”

Nicklas raised a finger, causing me to pause. “But these paths are not discrete, like a tree branch might be. Sometimes the paths of this labyrinth converge. For example, you might arrive at this house tonight – but in one past you are my enemy, another my oldest friend. Do you see?”

In that moment I felt a strange, invisible swarming all around me and Dr. Bäckström, a dark and impenetrable mass of movement. We were at the center of the agitation, but we were real, whereas they were just images of what might have been. But they were not separate from one another – they divided then coalesced in an impossibly complex pattern. I could not see them clearly, and all around us was a tumult, but I heard myself reply, “Yes, I do.”

“For that reason, then, the book is a riddle.” Nicklas continued, and as the madness cleared from my head his eyes were fixed on my face, an anchor in this world. I felt like another piece of his collection suddenly, the grandson of the man whose work he esteemed. “Its answer is time – that is the word it never uses, the nature of a riddle prohibiting its mention altogether. Nikolai Ovechkin did not believe in time as an absolute – rather, he saw it as an infinite series, a dizzying net of converging, diverging, and parallel paths. We do not exist in the majority of these times; in some, you exist and I do not, while in others it is the reverse. In the present one, which a favorable fate has blessed me with, you have arrived at my house. In some parallel world, you came here only to find me dead. In still another, I utter these same words, but you cannot hear me – I am a mistake, a ghost in your ear.”

“In every one,” I interrupted him, voice trembling, as I met his gaze with my own. “I am grateful to you. I revere your recreation of my grandfather’s garden. It is truly awe-inspiring.”

Nicklas finally broke our staring then, leaning back in his chair with an almost resigned air. The soft smile had returned to his face – I recognized it now as wistful. “Not in all,” he murmured. “Time forks perpetually towards innumerable futures. In one of them, I am your enemy.”

Once again, I felt the swarming I had felt before. But now the figures were clear – it was Nicklas and I, infinitely saturating the house and garden, multiform and busy. We crossed other dimensions of time, ranging from opaque to nearly translucent. In one, we sat on the garden bench, pointing to invisible birds atop the roof. In another, we fought over something meaningless and I left in a rage. In the last one, we were locked in a lover’s embrace, lips moving in unintelligible whispers. I raised my eyes to Nicklas’s face and the images dissolved until it was just the two of us again. Well, not quite – in the garden beyond the window there was only one man, as strong and resolute as a marble statue. He was approaching along the path and he was Captain Sidney Crosby.

I opened my mouth to speak and my voice trembled again. I had to force the words forward - we had come so close to the end now. “The future already exists, but I am your friend. I would always have been your friend. Can I see the letter again?”

I took in Dr. Bäckström’s appearance as he rose, the soft brush of his hair and the void-like blackness of his turtleneck in the dim light. He turned his back to me, fingers reaching for the drawer of the tall desk. I readied the revolver and fired with extreme caution. Nicklas fell uncomplainingly. I swore to myself that his death was instantaneous – a lightning stroke.

The rest feels unreal and insignificant. Crosby broke into the house and arrested me. I have been condemned to death, but I have won. I communicated the name of that place they must attack, the one that harbored the American nuclear weapons that would wreak havoc across my home country. They raided it yesterday – I saw it in the newspapers. The same papers had printed the death of Dr. Nicklas Bäckström, university professor, murdered in cold blood by one Soviet agent named Alexander Ovechkin, not two days previously. My supervisors had unraveled the clue – that the missiles were harbored in the district of Kholmsky, where the Lovat River marked that ancient trade route to the Baltic sea. I had found no other means to do so than to kill a man with a name that might communicate this secret.

But they do not know – no one can know – my innumerable contrition and weariness.

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this a long time ago for a different fandom and they didn't appreciate it. It actually fits better here... although the ending is a ridiculous stretch. Thanks for reading. :)


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